World

Report offers new detail on scope and scale of ISIS

The violent militant group known as the Islamic State, which has taken control of large swaths of Syria and Iraq over the last few months, is an "alarming phenomenon" that has no precedents in the modern age, according to a new report.

The report, released late Tuesday by the intelligence services firm the Soufan Group, provides new detail on ISIS' internal structure, its area of influence and the origins of its fighters, drawing from previous reporting and open-source intelligence.

ISIS is "an amazingly well-organized" group, according to Patrick Skinner, one of the authors of the report. Here's part of the group's organizational chart (click to enlarge):

Image: The Soufan Group, PBS Frontline

Skinner told Mashable that his team was able to recreate the organizational chart based on open source intelligence reported both in English and Arabic, a previous, more limited chart published by The Telegraph, Iraqi government statements, and "some well regarded Twitter leaks" from @wikibaghdady, a mysterious Twitter account that's been spilling ISIS secrets for months.

And here's a detailed map of ISIS-controlled areas, as well as the economic assets, such as oil production facilities, under the group's control (click to enlarge):

Image: The Soufan Group

Oil facilities are the main source of income for ISIS, and represent between $2 million and $4 million of daily income, according to the report. But there are other sources too, such as preying on small businesses, taxing large enterprises, exacting tolls on highways and getting paid ransoms. In total, ISIS has between $1.3 billion and 2 billion in assets.

ISIS' future, meanwhile, won't depend on the outcome of U.S.-led airstrikes, the Soufan Group says.

"Military action will limit its physical reach but will not destroy its appeal, either in Iraq and Syria or further afield," the report reads. To survive, ISIS will need to transition from being a military force to an administrative one in order to govern the territory it's taken a hold of.

ISIS has already shown signs that it can provide some level of government services. But "unless it can maintain existing public infrastructure and meet demands for food, water, health care, sanitation and energy, and build and sustain a functioning economy, it will not survive," the report continues.

Regardless of this challenge, ISIS might be here to stay, Skinner says.

"The lack of effective governance across the region was the fuel; the Syrian civil war and [Iraqi Prime Minister] Maliki's horrible rule was the spark," he said. "And there is so much fuel in the region to burn — generations of young men with no prospects or hope, no credible options or alternative, an attractive ideology of death that promises glory — that this problem will burn for a long time unless huge efforts are taken to extinguish it."

The report was released on the same day as a new documentary on ISIS by PBS Frontline. You can watch it here and you can read The Soufan Group's full report here.

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